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'Only strawberry,' Douglas told her, passing the jar of jam. 'Anything we should know about?'

'Just minor problems and not our patients,' Merrin said wearily, discarding her white coat and slinging it across one of the chairs. She went to one of the vacant couches, put half a slice of toast in her mouth, undid her shoelaces and pulled off her shoes and socks. 'What have you been up to?' She lifted her feet up onto the armrest, hoping that that way some of the pain would drain out of them. Then she lay back down, her hair spreading behind her on the couch, and munched her toast as she peered at them. 'I'm sorry I missed the appendicectomies. Doug, be an angel and come and rub my sore feet. Hmm?'

'Rub your own feet.' Douglas sent her a grumpy look. 'I just can't believe the way he's right so often,' he said irritably to Lindsay. 'He never misses one and what's his false positive rate? Hmm? Five per cent? Ten at the most? Mine's at least twenty-five.'

The SHO laughed. 'We were both convinced neither of them were real appendixes,' she explained to Merrin. 'Neither of them even looked particularly sick. We weren't intending to operate but Prof just took one little look at both kids and said, "Theatre".'

Merrin understood that appendicitis was common, but that pain in the region of the appendix was even commoner, and so, unless willing to resort to expensive tests and scans, every surgeon at some stage found that he or she had operated unnecessarily. 'Were they both inflamed?'

'Both,' Douglas complained. 'One so badly it would have perforated if we'd left him overnight.'

'The man's a genius,' she declared, lifting her head briefly for a sip of lemonade before she flopped back down again. 'That's obvious even to me. Did you bet any money on it?'

'Twenty pounds each case.' Douglas's words explained to Merrin why he was sounding so gloomy, but Lindsay grinned.

'Not me,' she declared. 'You know you're stupid to bet against him. You've never won a penny off him, never.'

'Wrong, Lindsay. He did once win five pounds.'

Merrin hadn't heard the door opening and she stiffened at the professor's interjection, but neither of the other two seemed startled that he'd come down to the mess. 'When was that?' Douglas called. 'I don't remember it.'

She could hear sounds of coffee making. 'We had a bet on what sort of car the new Trust head would get in his package. You said Mercedes and I said BMW.'

'I remember now. He got that new top-line Merc.'

'And that doesn't count,' Lindsay said lightly. 'We're talking about surgical bets here, not others. Douglas has never beaten you.'

'That's because I only take on sure things.' The consultant came to the door, and although his face was in shadow Merrin felt his gaze across her face. 'Sore feet?'

'Aching,' she declared. Experimentally she wiggled them at him. 'Prof—'

'No.'

'Lindsay?'

'No way,' the other doctor said evenly, pushing off her own shoes now. 'Mine are just as sore and I don't go round begging for massages.'

Merrin pulled a face. 'Doug, just five minutes...?'

'Get lost.' The registrar had his eyes closed. 'Prof, you don't want to go round the new admissions now, do you?

I'm going to fall asleep here if I don't go to bed. Can we wait till morning?'

'Fine.'

Merrin's eyes followed him involuntarily as he brought his coffee in. 'We'll start early, though. Seven.'

'Not a problem.' Douglas stretched his arms and yawned hugely, then stood. 'See you in the morning.'

'Wait for me.' Lindsay was scrambling for her shoes. 'I'm coming, too. Prof, there's cold toast here if you haven't eaten. Merrin, could you make sure that Mrs Ramsden's blood count is normal before you go to bed? She's a new admission to Red Ward, one of Mr Sanderson's patients. I took the blood but I haven't seen the result. Bleep me if it's abnormal.'

'I'll go up as soon as I've finished my lemonade,' Merrin replied. She waited until the main door closed behind the two other doctors, before swivelling around to look at her consultant who'd taken the seat where Douglas had been sitting. 'Two minutes' foot massage,' she pleaded. 'Please. You're so good at it. Just two minutes so it doesn't hurt to walk again.'

'I told you, no.' His voice was very deep, his face shadowed as he lifted his coffee-cup to his mouth. 'Put some warm water in one of the pots out there and soak them.'

'It's not the same.'

'Try it.'

'I've tried it lots of times. It doesn't work.'

'You're a menace.'

She saw his weakening and moved quickly to take advantage of it. 'One minute,' she said easily, hobbling across to him, taking Lindsay's place and lifting her feet up onto the armrest of his chair. 'See, you don't even have to move. Thanks.'

'Don't fall asleep,' he warned. 'I'm not staying in tonight. I can't take your bleeper.'

'I'm not going to fall sleep,' she whispered. But the soothing movements of his hands against her hot, aching flesh were too blissful for her to be able to keep her eyes open. 'Your hands are amazing. I bet you're fantastic in bed.'

'Merrin, for God's sake!' The abrupt loss of his touch struck her as sharply as his exclamation and she blinked her eyes open unhappily.

'I didn't mean anything,' she protested vaguely. 'Don't stop.'

'This is not supposed to be sexually pleasurable,' he snapped.

'I know that.' She was bewildered. 'I didn't mean I was finding it erotic. I'm not. Trust me, my feet are far too sore to be any sort of erogenous zone right now,' she assured him honestly. 'I promise. I was speaking...metaphorically.'

'Well, don't.' To her relief, his hands came back to cup her soles again. 'Just don't.'

Relaxing, she let her eyes drift slowly closed again. Her feet were too painful and too tired for her to make out any of the small, individual movements of his fingers but the total experience was incredible. 'If I do by some little chance fall asleep,' she said languidly, 'just shout me awake. I don't mind.'

'I told you not to sleep,' he said quietly. 'Keep your eyes open.'

She didn't want to but the warning tightening of pressure at her heels was compelling. She didn't want him to stop, and so she blinked up at him again. 'Why?'

'So I know you're awake,' he told her, watching her feet, not her. 'You still have work to do on the wards. You can't sleep yet.'

'OK.' She spread the toes of her left foot as he concentrated on a particularly sensitive area beneath her arch, but his other hand, dark against the pallor of her skin, moved to cup her toes and hold them still. 'That's wonderful,' she said huskily.
What seemed like ages later, she propped herself up onto her elbows, feeling herself flushing. The weight of her hair was heavy against the warm dampness of her neck and her breasts had grown swollen and sore. 'Prof...?'

He looked up briefly, his eyes very dark. 'Hmm?'

'I'm beginning to find this erotic now,' she admitted.

Neil's
hands stilled, but his fingers and thumb kept moving softly against Merrin's sole. 'Then I should stop.'

'Yes.' She was finding it hard to breathe and every sense in her body seemed concentrated on the slow slide of his fingers. 'But I don't want you to.'

'Is it good?'

'Of course.' She closed her eyes weakly. 'You know it is.' She let him continue a few more minutes then said roughly, 'I feel that I should warn you that this is now getting extremely erotic.'

'You have beautiful feet.'

'You have beautiful hands.' Her legs and thighs felt heavy and languid and she squeezed them together, trying to relieve the sensations his movements were provoking. 'I mean extremely, extremely erotic. I think you should definitely stop now.'

His fingers kept moving, gently, slowly, caressing her feet. 'You just told me you didn't want me to.'

'I don't want you to,' she whispered, gasping now as he lifted one foot towards his face. 'I just think you should.'

'Let me do the thinking now.' The touch of his mouth at her arch was exquisite. 'Lie back, Merrin. You've had a long day. You're very tired. Relax. Let it happen.'

'It won't,' she protested. 'It can't. Not here.'

'Yes, it can.' His voice was soft and insistent against her skin and his mouth and the touch of his tongue and the gentle suction at her toes was the most incredible sensation she'd ever experienced. ^

'You don't want me to do this,' she said brokenly, arching back into the softness of the couch. 'You know you
don't.' She tried to resist, tried to fight the bewildering sensations swirling around inside her body, but his mouth was too insistent and she was too late and she felt herself lifting, and tightening, and the pleasure rose sharply before she muffled her cry with the backs of her hands and collapsed back into the comfort of the couch.

'I don't believe it,' she groaned, crossing her arms across her face to hide herself from him. 'Oh, help. Tell me that didn't happen.'

'No sleeping,' he said dryly.

Reluctantly she opened her eyes and peeked out from between her arms. He still held her feet but immobile now, his fingers unmoving, and his expression was unreadable. 'I am never, ever going to be able to ask anyone else to rub my feet again,' she said thickly.

'That hasn't happened before?'

'From my feet being kissed?' She was so startled by the question that her arms fell away. 'Hardly,' she declared forcefully. 'It's not even anatomically possible.'

'Ninety per cent of sex is in the brain.'

'That statistic assumes at least ten per cent of it is in a more sexual organ than my feet.' She removed her feet from his unresisting hands and swivelled herself around so that she was sitting upright. She lowered her face into her hands then turned it so that she could look at him. 'I'm embarrassed. I don't know what to say to you. Are we going to have sex now?'

'No.'

'So what was that?'

'Something I shouldn't have done,' he said heavily. He'd stretched his legs out in front of him in his chair and she saw his eyes close. 'Something that will never be repeated.'

'I loved it,' she told him languidly. 'I love you.'

'You don't.'

'I can't believe how hot it is in here.' She walked towards the iced, frosted glass of the one window that fed down into the basement and wiped the condensation from it with her hand. Lifting her hair from her neck, she ran her moist hand over her nape and waited for the cool air to reach her skin. When that didn't work she released her hair and unbuttoned her blouse, lifting the cotton away from the sticky heat of her breasts and throat.

The soft noise he made brought her glance back towards him and she stiffened, heating anew at the speculative look her gestures provoked. 'I'm not undressing,' she said unevenly. 'Just trying to get cool.'

'Then stop displaying yourself,' he said tersely. 'That's not going to cool either of us.' In one smooth movement he was on his feet. 'Don't forget Mrs Ramsden on Red Ward. And remember we're starting at seven on Orange in the morning. I'm at home if anyone needs me.'

I need you, she wanted to cry, but, of course, she didn't. She knew that he knew that already.

She checked Mrs Ramsden's blood count, relieved to find it normal since waking Lindsay after all this time wouldn't have been enjoyable. Then she wandered around the wards to make sure there were no tasks outstanding, before drifting slowly back to her room, still too overheated to find the chilled stillness of the night air anything other than pleasurable. A lukewarm bath cooled her a little then she set her alarm, inwardly not expecting to need it, and woke at six in the morning, surprised that she'd managed to sleep right through.

By the time her two colleagues rushed onto the ward just after seven she had all the laboratory results from the day before off the computer and collated in progress sheets in the front of every set of notes. She also had all the X-rays in a stack under the notes trolley in alphabetical order rather than in order of bed number, as well as the complete medical and surgical histories
of all their latest admissions at her fingertips. She was mentally prepared, she told herself firmly. For the ward round if not for the professor.

'Going for the gold star this week?' Douglas enquired superciliously, when she explained the new system for the X-rays.

'It's a great idea,' Lindsay said defensively. 'Stop teasing her. It'll stop us losing them when the beds get changed around. Did you have a good night after we went to bed, Merrin?'

'An interesting one,' she conceded, turning her head away lest she was flushing. 'That blood count you wanted me to look at was normal.'

'We don't need to see her this morning,' the SHO said. 'I'll hand her over to Mr Sanderson's team as soon as they arrive. Where's Prof?' she asked, checking her watch. She clicked her tongue. 'It's not like him to be late.'

'His car wasn't in his spot,' Douglas said absently, studying a chest X-ray he'd ordered on one of their admissions from the day before. 'So he must be. Merrin, have you seen these markings?'

'I have and I showed it to one of the radiologists and he thought that it was consistent with her rheumatoid disease,' she told him. 'He said it wasn't anything to worry about and that it's unchanged from her previous films four years ago.'

'Good girl.' He put the X-ray away and ruffled her hair. 'Two gold stars.'

'Only two?' Merrin didn't need to look up to know that their consultant had appeared in the doorway—the way her pulse thudded in response to his question had told her that already. 'Three, surely,' he added quietly. 'Sorry I'm late. Let's start on ICU. They're probably wanting Mrs Becham's bed back by now.'

He waved Douglas and Lindsay ahead of him out the door, then stepped in front of Merrin as she went to go though. 'Good morning, Dr Ryan. Sleep well?'

'Yes, thank you.' Merlin's face felt like a Christmas lantern. 'Very well. Did you?'

'What the hell do you think?' To her utter bemusement his mouth came down on hard on hers in a brief but devastating kiss. 'Stay out of my way today,' he said softly when he lifted his head. 'Understand?'